I thought Chrome was recently updated and optimized to work on OS X to reduce battery hog?
The only time I use Chrome is if I need flash such as catching up on tv programs from my cable tv channels which only uses flash.
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Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro
- Thread starter fokmik
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The only time I use Chrome is if I need flash such as catching up on tv programs from my cable tv channels which only uses flash.
There have been improvements, but Safari is still better optimized for the Mac. (You can enable Flash for Safari, and only for particular sites, if you want.)
I stopped using Chrome as well. On my current usage I'm at 9hrs & 20 minutes with 19% left on the battery.. I'll probably stop monitoring the battery now, seems great.
I took my machine traveling and was able to get over 7 hours with it for the first time this past weekend. It was a lot of mixed use--not constant work but it is somewhat heartening.
I did not realize so many folks had abandoned chrome for safari.
I would really like to run a browser-based battery benchmark tool in safari and chrome and share results.
It looks like Selenium is a good method for doing this. It would be great if someone has a well-rounded test pattern already available I could run.
I did not realize so many folks had abandoned chrome for safari.
I would really like to run a browser-based battery benchmark tool in safari and chrome and share results.
It looks like Selenium is a good method for doing this. It would be great if someone has a well-rounded test pattern already available I could run.
is this abnormal? an average energy impact of over 23 (although at the moment, it's near 0). I've attached a photo of the activity monitor tasks under Safari. doesnt seem like anything unusual.
edit: uploaded a better picture
Note the graph at the bottom. while I've been off battery for over 4 hours, only been using it for about 2 hours, just on Safari and Word, for now. and I'm at 68% battery.
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In my experience over 20 for Safari only happens when I stream video. I keep 17 tabs open and my average impact is under 12. Looks like something you're doing with Safari has been using more than the usual amount of power.
I'm using Canary, the beta version of Chrome. After this weekends updates to Canary my battery life has taken a significant jump. Those who like chrome might want to check it out.
interesting...I only have a few pdf tabs open, and occasionally I open twitter or reddit to see what's new, but I really don't spend more than 5 or 6 minutes on those tabs each hour.
Safari has been like this for me since I received my tbMBP back in early December. I wonder whether I should do any of those PRAM/SMC resets...I've read about them, but haven't actually done them before. do you think it would help? or maybe a reinstall of Sierra?
Using Safari over got me an extra 30-45 minutes, still nowhere near 10hrs. Current Chrome average impact is 15.12
I don't think it would hurt anything to try those things. You could also try Safari Technology Preview, might be easier than a clean install, to see if that helps. It's like a beta version of Safari, and sometimes has energy-saving features early. That's what I'm actually using now. Haven't had any unusual stability issues. Runs just like Safari.
https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/
You could keep your Activity Monitor open and watch what part of Safari is using the power. Sometimes a page causes unusual energy use for no apparent reason. (I've seen people say this site is an energy hog, but I haven't noticed.)
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What else is using power in your Activity Monitor? I haven't tried other battery monitor apps, but some will tell you more about where your power is going.
The model you have is the one with the trickiest battery situation. Running your screen at 75% would require you do a test under ideal conditions to get 10 hours, with only Safari running and the system not clogged from earlier use. I wouldn't expect 10 with more normal use on that model, but you can probably do better than 7 if you're just browsing and doing other nonintensive stuff.
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I hate to say this, folks, but my tbMBP 13" 3.1ghz / 16GB / 1TB is still maxing at 5 hours of battery under routine use. I wish I was not having to focus on this. I realize the optics of someone complaining about a nice product like this must sound whiney but the product is simply not performing where Apple has claimed it should be.
I have started to migrate over to Safari from Chrome but after my charge today will perform another test of working only with Safari and my other normal apps.
I did not buy the machine expecting I'd need to change my browser in order to get the marketed battery time out of it. It isn't like I'm performing some major OS hack and running crazy software. Chrome owns over 40% of the browser market share today. Safari collectively has under 5%.
I have started to migrate over to Safari from Chrome but after my charge today will perform another test of working only with Safari and my other normal apps.
I did not buy the machine expecting I'd need to change my browser in order to get the marketed battery time out of it. It isn't like I'm performing some major OS hack and running crazy software. Chrome owns over 40% of the browser market share today. Safari collectively has under 5%.
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You know what I find bizarre? Running windows on bootcamp. Light browsing. 10 hours of battery life on Bootcamp. Chrome on MacOS never get above 6 hours.
Well, Safari is mainly an Apple thing, so it would have a limited share. Apple's claims are about use with Safari, and reasonably so. They can't control how others write their browsers.
Have you tried Canary? Someone posting above on this page says it's a better Chrome for battery life. If you really want Chrome.
This browser is a red herring. If you used browser X on your old system and got a certain amount of battery life, and continue to use browser X in the same way on your new system and get 30% less battery life, you are getting 30% less battery life.
Having to switch browsers, or turn display brightness way down sounds a lot like Job's telling users they are not holding their iPhone right when they get bad reception.
Having to switch browsers, or turn display brightness way down sounds a lot like Job's telling users they are not holding their iPhone right when they get bad reception.
The browser does affect battery life, that's just a fact. No one is suggesting turning brightness way down, nor that it's wrong to use other browsers. People are free to choose to use their batteries for any programs they please, with the results physics will dictate.
I have used Canary because i need multiple browsers for spaces. It performs as badly as chrome from what i can tell.
Actually, I've seen people talk about needing to set brightness lower repeatedly in this thread and others. And the previous comment is sort of how I feel about it. I use chrome the same way on my 2013 MBA and it does just fine. I did not expect to have to run Safari for this to get decent battery life.
Regardless, if you were to penalize chrome use for some reason it still is not getting 6-7 hours or regular business use. It just doesn't.
Actually, I've seen people talk about needing to set brightness lower repeatedly in this thread and others. And the previous comment is sort of how I feel about it. I use chrome the same way on my 2013 MBA and it does just fine. I did not expect to have to run Safari for this to get decent battery life.
Regardless, if you were to penalize chrome use for some reason it still is not getting 6-7 hours or regular business use. It just doesn't.
Of course, but lower isn't the same as "way down." Apple does their testing at 75%. Most people getting good results use a decent brightness.
The thing is that each person's usage is different. To see where the power goes in your case, you have to watch the Activity Monitor or some other monitor that will keep track for you. May not be only Chrome, could be something else. Lots of factors have come up in the discussions here. (Chrome penalizes itself, by the way.)
I hope you can get the battery life up to the level you need.
It is wrong to say that you have to use browser X instead of browser Y to get decent battery life on the 2016, when the same user's 2015 machine, with the same version of the OS, does fine with browser Y. Again, that is like "your holding it wrong" .
Huh? Again, it's just a plain fact that which browser is used affects battery life. Shall we try to adjust the laws of physics to get around that, or should we recognize facts as facts?
I still think there's a relationship between the people on this thread complaining about awful battery life and the 16GB models.
You know, people bash Apple regarding having poor battery life, but think about this objectively for a minute guys. I have no idea what changed with these new processors that apparently made it extremely hard to manage, but remember the power issues with the Surface Pro 4? Skylake seems to have been a very troublesome release. Apple fixed this MUCH FASTER than Microsoft did.
My initial experience with the 2016 13" TBMBP was really bad battery life, but after upgrading OS X and not using full screen brightness the battery is averaging over 8 hours and often over 10.
The worst battery consumer now is Xcode and using the iOS simulator for testing and even with this the battery lasted approximately 6 hours.
I think the key is in the screen brightness, but many have already commented on that.
Personally I'm very happy with the new model over the 2015 version. Size, speed and battery life are all good.
For what it's worth: Chrome sucking down battery life is not just an Apple issue. There have been complaints on the Windows side for YEARS about Chrome battery usage, doubly so on the MS Surface forums. Of course the solution is the same as here: jump ship to the OEM browser....
I'll also say that for the first few days my battery life [15" 2.9 460] was relatively mediocre, but after spotlight indexing and backups etc ad nauseam it seems to have sorted itself out -- mostly. Occasionally it'll seem like the dGPU gets stuck active and battery life tanks, and other times it'll sit at 100% for an hour before ticking down during web browsing and music playback. I have a huge suspicion that in the next update or two they'll lock down the issue and resolve.
I'll also say that for the first few days my battery life [15" 2.9 460] was relatively mediocre, but after spotlight indexing and backups etc ad nauseam it seems to have sorted itself out -- mostly. Occasionally it'll seem like the dGPU gets stuck active and battery life tanks, and other times it'll sit at 100% for an hour before ticking down during web browsing and music playback. I have a huge suspicion that in the next update or two they'll lock down the issue and resolve.